Cash on Hand in the last days of a campaign is crucial. There has been a lot of focus on what the dollar figure is in different races. Brad Mitzelfelt writes about the war in the 65th Assembly District below. (if too lazy to scroll down, click here) . A good piece. The reason it caught my attention was the over $200,000 COH that Jim Ayres had.
CRA is supporting another candidate, Brenda Salas. So, I looked at those reports earlier. To me it looks like over $100,000 of Ayres money CAN"T be used in the primary, because it was raised for the general election.
The way campaign finance law works in California, a donor can max out to candidate in the primary AND the general election. Of course they CAN’T spend it until then. For candidates assured nomination like Poochigian or McPherson it is no big deal, but in a contested primary it is.
Many candidates do this to inflate their fundraising numbers. It isn’t wrong, but when a candidate says they have X amount of money in the bank, you have to ask them "How much for the primary?".
That is Real Cash on Hand.
May 30th, 2006 at 12:00 am
And don’t forget Mikey that some campaigns hold on to bills to equally inflate those numbers. Its a silly game, but one some play for hype.